What's the big Digg?

It's no secret to those faithful travel industry bloggers that Digg is planning to bolster its web presence by allowing consumers to post reviews about everything from restaurants to hotels.

Can anyone say Digg Travel?

For die-hard techheads who have used the site to keep tabs on their favourite blogs, etc, Digg's plans are a big deal.

For travel industry observers, it's more like, "Oh, well, here's another one".

So Digg wants to enter the enormously crowded, highly competitive, testosterone-driven travel space.

Well, jolly good luck to them.

Doesn't TripAdvisor and a whole host of other sites already do this?

Admittedly, a negative review on Digg could be potentially more damaging than one on TripAdvisor by virtue of the way the former works.

BUT....those companies which are unfortunate enough to have a negative review "digged", will face the same dilemma as when a negative news story about their company continues to appear in the top listing of Google.

It's not great, but, for most, it's not the end of the world either.

There is no doubt that web reviews are a force to be reckon with--if they weren't then user generated content sites wouldn't have to look over their shoulder every 20 seconds to make sure they weren't libelling someone and PR minions wouldn't be dispensed in droves to write up glowing reviews about their clients (cheeky monkeys).

Social media sites, which are command centres for consumer reviews, are sweeping in millions of marketing dollars everyday from travel companies which see the huge importance of this medium to their business.

So, will Digg be the next Consumer Reports or TripAdvisor, as some enthusiastic bloggers have fathomed?

Maybe....then again, maybe not.

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

technorati tags: digg travel user reviews